TV Shows That Leave You Feeling Disturbed After Watching

For a lot of us TV is an escape. It’s a chance to unwind after a long day — maybe even a reward — and a way to forget about our own problems and get lost in someone else’s. But sometimes the shows we choose to watch don’t exactly leave us feeling relaxed. In fact, they might leave us disturbed — either because of their similarities to real-life situations or the fact that their subject matter is just downright freaky.

I won’t lie, I love a good thriller or dark drama, but sometimes the following shows leave me wishing I hadn’t watched them. Or at least needing a break from them from time to time.

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If you’re on the fence about marriage, don’t watch this true crime series. Sure, the cases focus on women who are accused of murder, but the fact that it’s always their partner whom the women attempt to kill just adds more weight to the question of how well you can ever know someone.

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To be honest, it’s not so much the subjects of the “My 600 LB Life” episodes that leave me feeling disturbed, it’s the enablers around them. Most of the morbidly obese individuals on the show eventually get to the bottom of their emotional issues, but the parents and friends who literally feed their habits and are often overweight as well never seem to see themselves in those they’re caring for or how their actions contribute to the other person’s struggle.

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At first, “Chewing Gum” was a hilariously accurate depiction of the late bloomer life I once lived. Eventually, the scenes became so increasingly graphic and disgusting I couldn’t manage to make it through the first season of the Netflix series.

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I’ve always loved a good scary story — a fact my mom has always thought was weird — but even “American Horror Story” was too much for me after a while. One day I found myself watching Lady Gaga and her partner slit the throats of another couple during a foursome in episode one of “American Horror Story: Hotel” and I literally asks myself “What the f-ck am I looking at?” It was such a sadistic scene that left me feeling upset, not necessarily from the visuals of the graphic scene but way it made me feel mentally.

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The Walking Dead is far less about zombies than it is human behavior and the way society’s break down when their way of life is threatened. We may not be facing an apocalypse (as far as we know) but if that time ever comes, God help us. Other human beings are far scarier than walkers.

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If you ever thought to yourself, “Technology is the devil,” “Black Mirror” will solidify that belief. The episode “Nosedive” is a cautionary tale of where society is headed in our quest to be liked (at least digitally). Similarly, episodes like “The Waldo Moment” and “White Bear” truly hold up a mirror to society’s faults.

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Shonda Rhimes’ political drama may not leave you with nightmares, but the similarities between the the events that unfold on the fictional show and the way in which our current government operates are quite eerie.

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Knowing what an issue mass incarceration is for people of color in this country, and given the increasing divide between law enforcement and Black men, it’s hard to see this show as “entertainment.”

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A “sudden departure,” 140 million people missing, cults on the rise. Nobody wants to think about what life would be like if this really happened one day.